KNOW a young adult interested in an career in agriculture?
The team at AgCareerStart will be holding a sundowner seminar in Perth next Thursday, February 22, at The Vault co-working space.
The event is open to students seeking an onfarm gap year in 2025 or beyond, and parents, teachers, careers counsellors or employers keen to kickstart an career in agriculture for a young person.
It is the only AgCareerStart information event scheduled in Perth this year.
AgCareerStart is in its final year of a pilot program, run by the National Farmers' Federation with $5.2 million in federal government funding, aimed at finding and fostering the next generations of young agriculture workers.
It is designed for 18 to 25-year-olds and matches them to onfarm jobs across the sector for 10-12 months.
As well as helping to give them a leg-up into a career, it aims to help provide a long-term solution to the industry's labour shortage by growing a resilient and skilled workforce.
Project manager Kayla Evans said the program was in its final year of a two-year pilot phase, which had seen 100 students so far supported into a paid, gap year, farm job, with a further 100 enrolled in 2024.
Last month, 84 new participants from across the country regions, gathered for the inaugural orientation week at The University of Queensland, Gatton, to share knowledge, network and have fun.
It's hoped funding will be provided for the program to permanently continue from 2025, with about 80-90 places per year.
Ms Evans said so far participants were fairly evenly split between city and country backgrounds, but only about 20 per cent had any previous experience in agriculture.
"They are mostly pretty green,'' Ms Evans said.
Participants receive a full-time wage, plus a $4500 training and education bursary, funding to travel to industry events, access to a dedicated support team to help them transition into the workforce after their gap year and help to build a peer network across the country.
She said the program had already showed its worth - with an 84pc completion rate among participants.
"Within that group, 84pc have continued to work onfarm, within the agriculture industry or they are studying agriculture at university,'' Ms Evans said.
"And 94pc of all the students we have had so far say would be likely to consider a career in agriculture in the future.''
Ms Evans said a variety of farms had signed up for the program over the past two years, including Kimberley cattle stations, broadacre grain and livestock properties and dairies.
She said students' location and industry preferences were considered during the process of matching a participant to a farm.
"We work across all the food and fibre industries, we have had 14 go onto cattle properties this year, plus sheep and grain, and students have done aquaculture and viticulture,'' she said.
"But the majority go into typical, mixed broadacre farms.''
Registrations are essential and open until Wednesday, February 21, via the AgConnectStart Facebook page.
